New Yorkers celebrate gay pride with annual parade

Celebration and pride mixed with defiance in New York City on Sunday as throngs of people crowded the streets, rainbow flags waving, for the annual gay pride march.

Tennis legend Billie Jean King was one of the grand marshals, along with transgender advocate Tyler Ford and civil rights organization Lambda Legal. The event, and others like it around the country, commemorated the riots that erupted in response to a police raid at a New York gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in June 1969.

Onlookers and participants in New York noted those origins at Sunday’s event, which was both a celebration of the diversity of LGBT culture and a statement against anti-LGBT policies promoted by President Donald Trump, such as the Republican president’s attempt to ban all transgender people from serving in the military. They also spoke out against policies aimed at other communities, like immigrants and minorities. (AP)